


If My Heart Was a House

by backintimeforstuff



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backintimeforstuff/pseuds/backintimeforstuff
Summary: "Amy Pond is mad, impossible and downright undeniable; and he loves her more than all the stars he’s standing beneath."Eleven/Amy inspired by Owl City.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Amy Pond
Kudos: 17





	If My Heart Was a House

Sometimes, they get days off. In amongst saving worlds and battling monsters, the Doctor decides – to hell with it. To hell with the fire escapes and the explosions, doing nothing is just as important. It’s good for the soul, or so he says, whenever he’s caught doing something questionable. Drinking teas and lounging around reading, well, both of those things are vital. He’ll never say no to a spot of learning, and in any case if he doesn’t slow down a bit, Amy will inevitably throttle him. 

On lazy days, he likes to spend his time staring intently into the depths of the scanner screen as if it will offer him all the answers in the universe. Sometimes he stands on the glass floor for hours, just gazing, wondering whether anything will ever make sense to him. Then of course, Amy walks in, an he’s forcefully reminded that it won’t. 

\---

One day, when he’s looking so intently at a map of an auburn sky, he doesn’t notice her at all. He’s completely absorbed in the way the stars shine that he only registers her when she gets close enough to take his breath away.

She steps up with a playful enthusiasm, slinging her arms around his waist. Her chin settles on his shoulder, and even though she can quite clearly see the galaxies swirling on the screen, she enquires:

“What are you looking at, mister?” 

The Doctor smiles slightly, eyeing her. “Nothing but an auburn sky.” 

“Ooh, very poetic.” 

She’s about to pull away and he can feel it – she’s about to give him a simple smile and walk away around the console, finding something else of interest altogether. Right now, there’s nothing he wants less. He wants her to stay right here with him and gaze at the stars he can’t wrap his head around. He wants her opinions on the complexities of the universe, and the beauty of it, too. 

In attempt to make the most of his position, trapped somewhere in Amy’s arms between her chest and the console, he turns to face her. He swivels slowly on his heels, locking eyes with her. And then it clicks. The impossibilities of the golden stars stare right back at him through her eyes, the mind-numbingly intriguing, and frankly gorgeous pools of light that make him smile as she blinks once or twice. They’re inches apart, and out of nowhere, the night he first met her comes to the front of his mind. 

“What are you thinking?” 

Her whisper is almost sincere. He’s turned to face her in complete silence, and it occurs to him only when she enquires. He can tell she’s somewhat cautious about the red-tinged starlight, but by no means should she be. 

As much as he’d like it to make sense, right now, in this single second of space and time, he’s entirely content with knowing absolutely nothing at all. Once upon a time he dropped out the sky in a ball of fire, and be it coincidence, or miracle, the same sunlight stars he catapulted past are alive in Amy’s eyes. He reaches out, finally, his hands finding her waist. 

“Amelia Pond.”

It’s not a question, it’s not a command. It’s just her name, her real name that she won’t let anyone use. She says it’s too fairy-tale. But right now, standing as they are together inside a time machine, a mad impossible Scottish girl and her imaginary raggedy man, it can’t get much more fairy-tale than this. He rolls it over his tongue as if he’s trying it out, listening it as it bounces off the copper walls. It sounds good. It makes him smile. 

“You are the sky that I fell through.” 

\--- 

“It’s a beautiful backyard, I’ll give you that.”

The Doctor can’t help but smile whenever Amy says things like this. Of course, she’s not being literal – they’re staring at a golden sun hanging in a crystal sky, and there’s not a single flowerbed in sight.

If he’s being entirely honest, he can’t even begin to remember how long they’ve been sat here together, suspended in space, legs swinging from the TARDIS door. With her, it feels like he could gaze for eternity into the depths of the universe, showing her wonder upon wonder until they’ve seen everything a thousand times. 

She sighs slightly next to him as distant planets come into view, shining brightly in the light of the giant star. After a moment, she asks:

“They don’t know we’re here, do they? All those people down there?”

He’s pleasantly surprised by the question. Amy’ s usually caught up in so much chaos, right in the epicentre of the universe to ever really appreciate such quiet life as it glides silently by. He supposes they should do this kind of thing more often – days off or not.

He shifts slightly on the floor, crossing his ankles as his boots nearly touch the distant starlight, and concedes with a negative. “They can’t see us, no.”

He casts his eye to an amber planet, the smallest one in this particular solar system, just as Amy sits up a little straighter. 

“So, they’re just-” She’s in a casual inquisitive mood, and he loves it. “-y’know… living? Typical chip-shop Friday, nothing out of the ordinary?” 

He laughs and looks over at her. “Pretty much, yeah.” And then he thinks about it. “Why? Do you want to make some kind of grand entrance?” 

“No!” She shushes him playfully, wafting him in the chest as he smiles. The tips of her fingers linger slightly too long above his hearts. “I just- I just think it’s brilliant.”

He waits. 

“There’s a whole world down there, and here we are. Looking down on it.” She considers before looking up at him with a sense of sincerity. “You and me. Suspended. Unnoticed.” She smiles. “Just spending time watching a star shine.”

The star in question might be a lifeline to a thousand civilisations, warming the worlds they’re gazing on – but right now, he’s stopped looking. 

He feels her hand on his own, running fingers over knuckles as they grip on the edge of the floor. He hopes beyond everything that she doesn’t notice his breath catch, or the heartbeat in his wrist as she touches a thumb to it, but he knows she’s already caught it. 

\--- 

One particular day, one ashen evening in which the universe seems to be crumbling all around them, Amy asks him to dance. 

As if he’s not staring intently at enough screens, she still manages to divert his attention for a split second; loitering on the stairs with a deep-set gaze.

“Come here, you.”

He tries to tell himself that he’s not about to drop everything to give her exactly what she wants - especially now, with skies shattering like panes of glass – but something tells him it’s impossible to resist. 

As if they have all the time in the world, he crosses the floor to join her. 

“What’s brought this on?”

They’re inches apart, and Amy’s already running fingers across his shoulder. “The end of everything.” 

“Mm.” He concedes, looking her slowly up and down. “Damnation brings out the best in us.”

“The best in us, the best of us; hey-” She starts quietly, entwining their hands together - “Dance with me?”

“Indefinitely”. 

Lost together atop the glass floor, he doesn’t even have to think twice. He’s caught entirely in her eyes, and to hell what the scanner screen says, because right now it doesn’t matter. The universe could end a thousand times and he’d turn a blind eye; choose not to notice the destruction of worlds with his hands in the small of her back. He spins her around and it’s all he can think about – red hair reflecting off copper walls; she’s beyond anything he could have ever hoped for. He’d burn an entire constellation just to hear her laugh, and she knows it. It’s why she’s got the upper hand. 

In any case, she’s got a distant look in her eyes now, as if she’s looking right through him to all the levers they’re swaying past. Her irises are near amber and glistening, pupils as dark as the night. Mid-dance, she leans up to his ear and smiles.

“What are you thinking about?” 

He responds slowly, moving his hands to her waist. “Auburn skies.” He smiles and holds her tighter. “What are you thinking about?”

“You.” 

\--- 

Sometimes, on the laziest days, when they can do nothing else, the Doctor takes Amy home. Far from distant auburn skies, home is just where she left it - a safe place where navy blue wallpaper peels from dusty walls and a little plastic pinwheel spins. 

Following in tow, the Doctor sticks his hands in pockets as they make their way up the garden path, sunlight streaming down in the evening. He watches as she fishes around for the front door key, red hair shimmering like the star that’s shining here, melting its way through every blade of grass. 

God love her, he thinks. God love Amelia Pond with her impossible house; so crooked and wonderful and straight out of a fairy-tale. Over time he’s come to call it the Vicarage, for that’s what Amy says it was, once, back in a time when communities thronged on Leadworth green and there were ducks in the duck pond.

As much as hates to admit it, he’s come to love it here too. He’s come to love the dandelions and abandoned bee hives, that creaking staircase and the dust coated sash windows. In any case, as far as Leadworth goes, this small leafy village has made Amy exactly who she is. He adores it as much as he adores her. 

“Thanks for bringing me.”

The Doctor smiles slightly at her sincerity. “You’re very welcome.” 

When the stars come out in the evening, when they’ve sat around the kitchen table like the very first night they met; the Doctor’s upstairs by the window. A sole orange light-bulb casts a shadow over his face as he picks at his lips - staring intently into the garden below. Trust Amy Pond to be magnificent, he thinks. Trust her to be brilliant, and wonderful, and all the rest of it. She’s mad and impossible and downright undeniable, and he loves her more than all the stars he’s standing beneath. At any rate, he knows they only shine because she’s saved them. 

He catches her reflection in the window before he sees her, all red hair and long legs, ascending the stairs to share in the auburn glint of evening.

Like their first night in the TARDIS, she crosses over to him and slings her arms around his waist. Her chin settles on his shoulder, and in the midst of the dusk she asks:

“What are you thinking about, mister?”

Again, like the last time, he turns to give her a small smile. “Your blue walls.”

“Sorry what?” She’s momentarily caught off guard.

“Blue walls.” He says again, running his finger down the offending wallpaper as Amy’s nails smooth over his shirt. “Hallways, kitchen, everywhere. Your whole house is blue.”

“Yes.” She flashes her eyes at him, leaning to look through the window at the TARDIS on the front lawn. “So’s yours.”

“Yes.” His smile widens. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Breaking their embrace, Amy shifts to stand next to him, fingertips passing over his. “God, the years I waited for that box.”

He doesn’t know how to phrase the kind of apology he knows he needs to make. He hates the thought of her stranded here, summers turning into winters without any hope at all.

"I'm sorry, and I would have come back sooner it's just-" The Doctor falters. He knows there's no real explanation.

Still, Amy smiles, running a nostalgic finger down the window pane. “It’s okay. It just felt like I poured my whole heart out in this house, though.”

Outside, rain starts to patter lightly, blurring the view. The Doctor sighs. It’s now or never. He takes her by the hand, entwining their fingers together.

“Well, if my heart was a house,” he starts, looking up at Amy’s whitewashed ceiling before chancing a glance at her, “you’d be home.”


End file.
